It’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and many people are still sleeping off the turkey-induced fatigue from large family feasts. Perhaps they’re dreaming of the holiday meals ahead. In either case, if they’re anything like me, they are perhaps wondering what all this holiday cheer means for the waistline.
Chesley Oxendine
However, the nutrition community of Muskogee has some collective advice for holiday weight watchers: enjoy yourselves, and come back to it after the Christmas trees are down and the New Year has been suitably celebrated.
“Enjoy your holiday and time with family and friends. Eating healthy and working on your fitness goals does not mean you have to be hyper vigilant about every bite that goes into your mouth,” said Kerry Yacono Keane, owner and manager of Muskogee Gym FitHappens.
RetroNutrition owner David Carducci echoed the sentiment.
“It’s almost impossible to not sit down with your family and eat,” Carducci said. “The best thing to do is use that as a cheat day.”
As a matter of fact, Keane said, fretting about one’s holiday intake can damage fitness efforts.
“Besides making you “that” person at your family functions, it can actually have the opposite effect. Stressing over counting every macro 24/7 is stress, and stress as we know causes hormone changes that can lead to weight gain,” Keane said.
Instead of kicking yourself over every bite of dessert, it’s better to practice moderation as much as possible, Keane said.
“Enjoy your favorite items, but be mindful of when you are full and have satisfied that craving, drink extra water, eat a few extra veggies, put your phones down and enjoy activities with your family that help you to move, like walk outside together, a pick up game of basketball or catch,” Keane said. “Then get right back on the ‘healthy wagon’ the next day.”
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Of course, eventually the holidays will be over and normal schedules will resume, and that’s when the New Years’ resolutions kick in. That would be a good time to look into Muskogee’s thriving nutrition community.
FitHappens, for example, opened in October at 3300 Chandler Road. The gym offers visitors one-on-one and small-group training with a range of options such as ladies’ only or 50+ groups.
“We are more than a gym, we are a welcoming community of real people working toward real, sustainable results,” Keane said.
Retro Nutrition, 2628 W. Okmulgee Ave., works to thoroughly identify its clients’ health, Carducci said.
“We track them, we do a weight assessment, a BMI assessment, we look at fat density, bone density, we make sure they’re eating properly,” Carducci said. “We just work through and we stay close to them.”
Retro Nutrition helps “eating properly” along with a wealth of teas, shakes and snacks meant to boost energy and help with weight loss, Carducci said.
On the other side of town, at 2212 E. Shawnee Bypass, Health Biz emphasizes organic nutrition and weight loss products to help shed a few holiday pounds, says manager Debra Climer.
“We have garcinia cambogia, Skinny Magic, Ultra Skinny Magic,” Climer said. “We’ve got a few of the different weight loss products.”